Amazon is closing down a total of eight cashierless Go stores in the US, as reported by Engadget. Two stores will close in New York City, two in Seattle, and four in San Francisco on April 1st.
The news follows the announcement of the company that they will pause construction of its second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. Amazon will reassess its office needs, especially now that there are more people who prefer to work remotely.
According to Bloomberg, the company's latest cost-cutting moves is also due to their slowing sales growth. It can be recalled that in January, they expanded its planned job cuts from 10,000 to 18,000 roles. Most of the layoffs tat recently occurred impacted staff from their retail and recruiting divisions.
Also read: How Amazon Go Cuts Checkout Lines And Cashier Jobs
Amazon Go Format
Despite the changes, the company reassures that they are committed to the Amazon Go format. They operate over 20 Amazon Go stores across the country and will continue o learn the locations and features resonate most with customers.
The Amazon Go stores are designed to be high-tech shops equipped with cameras and sensors that can detect when products are taken and returned to shelves. With this, customers can get any item that they want, which will be added to their virtual cart for online payment, and then exit the store without the need to pass by a cashier.
Currently, the company still has over 20 Go stores in the US and has been changing their strategies often. They used to have 87 retail pop-up kiosks across the country, but they were also shut down before the global pandemic.
In 2022, the company also closed its 68 physical bookstores, pop-up locations and 4-star shops in the US and UK. Last month, the company is planning to go big on its brick-and-mortar grocery store business.
Despite the recent closures, the ecommerce giant will continue to open stores around the country and they are also identifying other job opportunities within the company within other local Amazon Go stores and Amazon Operations sites, such as fulfillment centers.
The first Amazon Go Store opened in 2018 in Seattle, and last January, the company opened its first suburban Amazon Go location in Washington following their launches around urban areas in a bit to draw commuters on their lunch breaks.
Amazon entered a highly competitive industry and was going up against big food retailers that have years to master a complicated trade.
Some say that Amazon did not consider the competitive landscape in the category. Thus, this has resulted in the closure of several stores, along with frequent strategy changes that are being seen in the past years.
Related article: Amazon Go Brings Cashierless Convenience Store Shopping to Suburbs
